Mailbag, incl: What about Schrodinger’s Shares? December 7, 2025

25:15That's a question I'm not going to go into, and I would never ever suggest you avoid or evade tax. Minimize it, sure. Don't avoid or evade it. Get yourself in trouble. Someone will tell me that avoid and evade have different legal meanings. I don't care. You know what I'm saying. The rate is up to 40%. It is a – let me quickly pull it up here because I did have it. It applies. It starts at – 18%. 18%. Thank you. There you go. Couldn't get to it. There you go. 18 % for the first$10 ,000. Now, you get$60 ,000 effectively tax-free, so it's a bit like marginal taxes, not the average but total. US dollars too, just for clarity.

25:54Correct. Thank you. Good work. That's one benefit of the exchange rate going down. There is some discussion. You mentioned a discussion online. There is a legal view, well, I shouldn't say I believe, I don't know if it's been tested in court, that an SMSF, the trust owns the shares, you don't. You are the beneficiary of the trust's assets. And because the trust doesn't die, there may or may not be tax payable at that point. So the trust distributes your assets, You don't, it doesn't go through a usual probate process. Probate is the process, and again, I'm not a lawyer. Probate is the process of someone who dies having their estate distributed.

26:32As you will know from, hopefully everyone knows this, if you've got a self-managed, if you've got any super fund, you should, I won't say must, but effectively must, in my view, have a binding death nomination of one sort or another. Why? Because your will does not, so your super does not perform part of your will. Your super is distributed independently of your will, partly because you don't own the assets. Super fund owns the assets. you're the beneficiary, and so it's treated differently. There is a view that superannuation assets or assets owned by any other trusts or companies don't have the same legal obligation because the trust doesn't die, the company doesn't die, just the individual dies.

27:04The shares of the company that owns the shares or the trust that owns the shares may change, the beneficiary of the trust may change, that in some views don't cause estate tax to be levied. I don't know, and I'm not going to make any assurance. I'm not going to give you any opinion. I'm just going to say that, yes, it's something I have thought about. If I was going to sell my US shares, particularly my Berkshire shares, that would be probably the and maybe the single reason to do so, to avoid that because I don't really want to have to pay estate taxes of up to 40%. I mean, nice problem to have.

27:34What's that? I have to have a million bucks worth of US shares, US dollars, to pay 40 % estate tax. It's marginal tax rates applied, so the average tax rate's a bit different. Won't go into the details of it, but for what it's worth. So, yeah, I don't know the answer. You should be aware of it. you should know that it's a very real risk. You should know that it's held in your own name. It's a very real risk. Whether or not the shares could be sold before the death was notified to the US authorities may be something that you may or may not want to look into. Whether you should, as you get later in life, transfer those shares, sell those shares, think about a company or a trust structure, self-managed super fund or non-self-managed super fund, I don't have strong answers for you.

28:12So please be aware of it. If it does impact you, please go and get legal and financial advice. as I'm not aware of it being tested in court. I don't know whether in practice that just means that it never gets applied or whether it actually does get applied, but it's a very, very, very real amount of money. I mean, if it's a million bucks worth of – again, it's a marginal tax rate and it's progressive, so it's not an average. The 40 % over$1 million is not 40 % every dollar over$1 million – sorry, every dollar over$1 million. It's not 40 % on the whole thing because it applies like marginal tax rates do in income tax in Australia.

28:41So, yeah, looking here, for example, if you had$1 million, you'd pay$292 ,000 in estate tax on the way from the averages. So that's a 29.5 % odd tax rate. So yeah, it's real. I can't give you advice on what you should do. If you have Australian domiciled ETFs, it doesn't include those. Apparently, if they're non-US domiciled ETFs, it also doesn't capture that. So if you own an Australian domiciled S &P 500 index fund, for example, there's no estate tax payable. Again, according to my understanding of the way this works. So that's a summary. I don't know if it's helpful. I'm not going to give you the reassurance you're looking for, Anonymous.

29:19I would absolutely suggest you ask a tax accountant to give you advice, but be aware of it. Again, as we've said lots and lots and lots of times, do you want to pay tax? No. If you want more tax to pay, is that a good thing? Sometimes, yes. If you can earn more, look, if you're owning video shares over the last 15 years, you've got 100 times your money, and you know what? You weren't going to get the whole Intel Store of Rams earlier example, so it doesn't have to be happy about paying the tax, but, man, there are bigger problems. If you're investing in a low return or equal return US asset, Australian asset, and you've got to pay straight tax on one, not the other, then, yeah, you're going to be worse off than you if you invest in Australia.

29:53So there are very real considerations. Yeah, it just basically means if you're going to invest directly in the US, go for something with some pretty good upside potential, I guess. Yeah, or a structure or get advice or sell it before you – no one knows exactly when we're going to fall off the perch, but, you know, if I was 98, I'd probably sell my US shares. I'll say that. Okay, yes. Yes, because, you know, there's no reason to take the risk at that point. You're not buying green bananas anymore. Not buying green bananas. Should we go to the next one? Yeah. This one comes from someone who calls themselves VC Echo.

30:23So there you go, VC. Gracious greetings and salacious salutations to the gods of the pod, the omnipotent purveyors of knowledge, the men that have a page in every book. And as for you, Scott, I'm very disappointed. I bought Bitcoin several months ago, says VC. I had been riding the wave of good fortune until very recently when the price plummeted and I couldn't see or find a reason for it. After listening to a recent rant session, I mean, treasure trove of immaculate, well-organised, articulate nuggets of intellectual gold, there it was, the betrayal. Scott bought Bitcoin. It's all your fault.

31:05Sending the world into chaos, neither universe. Crashing financial markets the world over and bringing Bitcoin almost to its knees. At least Scott only bought a small amount, preventing a total collapse. Yes, okay. Thanks, Scott. Yeah. Then to The Ram, a capital T, capital R. I read an article the other day spelling out the four-year boom in crypto winter cycle and leading into a more stable period where Bitcoin may vary a little, but we won't see the massive volatility of the past. Could this be the weight of adoption or the catalyst for mass adoption? I don't know. The thing is we've got 16 years of history, less really, because it didn't, for the first year or so, it didn't trade.

31:51There weren't exchanges, right? So we have very, very limited history to extrapolate and people do love to play with the data and, you know, here are these patterns of three years up, one year down and this and that. And the other great one was with the halving, you know, there's these halving trackers. I'll not even get into what the halving actually is, but, you know. And there's we, this is also, this isn't a Bitcoin thing. This is an investing thing. The human brain is a pattern spotting mechanism. It's what we do. We spot patterns. And it's very, very biologically advantageous. advantageous to know that, you know, it's this time of year that the fruit blooms on that tree and this is when the buffalo come through.

32:38And, you know, to identify spot and know patterns is to give you a predictive capacity. So it's incredibly important. The trouble with it is it backfires all the time. We see patterns that aren't there, right? Then we get into all the pseudoscience nonsense of astrology and the rest of it, you know. And, I mean, I'm fond of saying there was plenty of cultures around the world that thought if you would just, like, sacrifice, you know, some kid that, you know, you might make it rain. And it's like, well, it works. Most of the time we've done that. And, again, we're just seeing patterns that aren't there.

33:15So I don't. The patterns aren't there, they're not causal. Yeah, right. It's completely coincident. What's that website? You'll remind me of this. It's this great website. Oh, God, yes. You keep talking. I'll find it. Okay. So basically it shows the relationship between all these really weird things and it would make you think that there is a very real pattern there. One of the classic ones in the stock market is... Spurious correlations. Spurious correlations. Yeah, and you'll see all these patterns that go, oh, wow. The one in the stock market that's semi-famous is the hemline indicator, which talks about the length of...

33:52Well, it's pretty sexist, I suppose, but the length of women's skirts. at the hemline. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was like they were long in the 50s and in the 60s they got very short. Anyway, some genius like plotted it against the market and said, you know what, whenever we start seeing miniskirts, the market's in a good mood. That's the time to invest. Now, it's completely spurious, right? It means absolutely nothing. But we see this pattern that's here. Now, let me add, maybe there is validity to this pattern. I just, you know, when Scott said a moment ago that the market always goes up and it tends to go up by this amount, you caught yourself pretty quickly because there's no guarantee in that.

34:34But there is more validity in that because at least with the stock market, there's 100 plus years, in fact, many hundreds years of history. But even if you want to go to modern times, there's 100 years' worth of history there. It's like I might start to put some stock in that as a pattern. 16 years and an entirely new technology, a thing that most, When I say most, like 90 % plus of the world has no idea what it is. I was joking off air about the latest ABC thought piece into it. I'm not going to mention the journalist name. It is embarrassing, right? It's like how can you infer any kind of pattern on it?

35:09So this stuff is interesting, VC, but I would ignore all of it. Here's my thesis on it, right? Do I think that there is a value proposition in incorruptible, open, neutral, sound money for the world? I think so. And I think the world is slowly waking up to that. I think if that is something that we see increasing adoption on, you're probably looking at something at the very least which puts it on par with gold, which is, what, US$30 trillion market cap at this point in time versus Bitcoin, which is under US$2 trillion at this point in time. It could have happened by the time this goes to air, let's be honest.

35:49But for now, it could be anything, as PC said. So that's kind of what it is. Now, let's just say, just for the sake of argument, that that's a reasonable viewpoint. It's kind of like, well, if your view is that this thing will be worth millions per coin at some point in the not ridiculous future, buy it. Yes, it's going to drop. And this is the other great parallel with the share market. Like the share market drops all the time. And I'm not talking about a day where we're down 0.8 of a percent. I mean, like 20 % corrections you see virtually every year, if not every other year. 50 % corrections you'll generally see once, what is it, mate, every six, seven, eight years, something like that?

36:32Yeah, yeah. Every 13 months is the average stock market correction. Incredibly mature, long-lived, well-established asset class. And by the way, for the same reason, right? It's all sentiment. It's just all pure guesswork and sentiment. Just on the share market thing, I wanted to pick this up for a sec. Actually, two things. On Spiris correlations, you'll see a graph that says from between 2012 and 2021, the internet access rate among US citizens is perfectly correlated with solar power generation in Honduras. There you go. Which is brilliant, right? So it must be true. There's a million of them there.

37:05That's why it's such a great website. Think about the share market, and this is not to defend it or make any prediction other than not only has it gone up for 120-something years, but there's a fundamental reason for that which is actually demonstrated by company profitability. And so, again, I'm not saying it doesn't mean it should keep going up either. It's just when you look at 120 years, well, it's 120 years, that might just be X, Y, Z. I mean, there might be is at the level of company profit, maybe company profits plateau, maybe it falls, maybe all the other things happen. It's not just a case of price went up so price will keep going up.

37:34It's the fundamental underpinning was the profitability. And you mentioned that. And the underpinning of that is the ongoing advancement of human civilisation. Productivity, invention, growth, all those wonderful things that make us far, far better off. And I've said, I don't mean about, I was going to go back to Bitcoin, I will, but I've said a million times, if you think this is peak humanity, if we never manage to invent another machine, ever find a way to improve productivity, ever find a way to grow the economy, yeah, silly shares because the past is different to the future. Even if we're on the cusp of 50-year dark ages, like that's probably a good move as well.

38:10Right, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But either way, if I were... In the long run, we're all dead. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Anyway, the Bitcoin thing, your point, Ram, and it's a fundamental one, is back to the Bitcoin proposition doesn't change. You made this point unfair. The Bitcoin proposition is exactly the same as it was when the price was 25 % higher, except that I bought, in which case that's perfect justification. But the broad idea, regardless of what you think, you talk about why you think it's going to work. My bet is more heavily on the adoption than the fundamentals. I'm not saying that fundamentals are bad.

38:38I'm just choosing not to worry about that because it doesn't... Fundamental. One drives the other though, right? People are only going to adopt it because they see the value proposition. Or perceive the value proposition. Or perceive incorrectly if they perceive it. I'm not saying you're wrong. My view is just literally the case of will the church of Bitcoin grow? If it does, then more people want it. If more people want it, the price goes up, right? It's the same as honestly, and this will be offensive to some Bitcoin holders and that's fine. I don't mean it offensively. You'll just have to take an exception.

39:05People don't drink more Coke now than they used to in 1905 because somehow Coke is healthier or better for you or refreshes better, maybe slightly less, well, because it probably had cocaine in it back in the day. But the broad idea of - Can't give you a lot more energy. Right? But the idea is like, why do people drink Coke? First of all, why do they drink Coke at all? Second, why do they drink more than they used to? Comes into a few things, right? But it's largely, we've all agreed, not even agreed, we've all believed individually this thing is worth drinking. It appeals to my sense of whatever I like about Coke.

39:36Not even all of us, just enough of us. Right, enough of us, yeah. And so that's a good point. So to me it's like whether Coke genuinely is more refreshing is kind of not even really the point. People think it is. And if they think it is because it is, that's great. If they think it is because it's not, that's great. They're still drinking the stuff, right? They're still drinking the black stuff. I'm a very big fan of Coke, Coke Zero for the record. And it is what it is, right? If you proved to me that Pepsi was objectively better for you or tasted better on some sort of objective measure or something else, I would still drink Coke, right?

40:06Why? I wouldn't do it rationally. Rationally I couldn't ever justify it, but I will because I just like the flavour and I've conditioned myself to believe it's a thing and that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to, right? And again, it's not too – I don't say that to spit in the eye of the Bitcoiners who are just – it's just because the money is the money. It's a better money. It's therefore it's a better money. It must therefore win. I don't believe any great ideas must win because they're great ideas. I just don't – they may. You've got a better chance of a good idea winning than a bad idea.

40:31Yeah, totally. It helps. Yeah, absolutely. But the conviction of that idea, right? Mate, let me offend some other people. How big is religion? Open for the masses, right? Like, is there a God? I don't think so. You may disagree, and if you do, that's fine. That's your choice. If I don't think there's a God and other people do, and the church grows, does it matter if I'm right or wrong? Does it matter if you're right or wrong? It doesn't. Well, in our lives, it probably matters because there's either pearly gates or there's, you know, six foot of dirt above me. But either way, it's like the belief that it's true is all that matters.

41:03If I was going to bet in 1500 on the growth of the church, I didn't have to do it because I know there's a God, therefore it's worth betting on. I'd go, well, hang on, if the opiate of the masses is the opiate of the masses and more people are going to get a church than they did 100 and 400 years ago, then if I could monetize that, I would have because that was an easy bet, right? If Bitcoin is religion or if it's money, it doesn't really matter in the context of the final value because, by the way, it could be the best money in the world if everyone goes, yeah, but no, we don't want it. But it's better.

41:30I don't care. All right, that's not worth anything. If it's a complete scam but everyone loves it, the price is going to go up. Now, it's neither of those things in my opinion. It's not the only choice of money and it's not a scam. But that's kind of, for me at least, that's kind of, and that's why I've bought a small amount. I haven't bought any more since I initially did a bit over a month ago. No, a bit less than a month ago, sorry. You can tell what I bought, by the way, because that's when the fall did actually start, Visa. You're absolutely right. It was the big go time. I kid you not. It wasn't the absolute, it was the 10th.

41:58Just for someone to laugh at me, you've got to look up yourself because it'll amuse you. It was the 10th of November. And so I'm looking at the US dollars because that's what tends to be talked about. And the price was on that day. I don't actually know the price I paid because I bought a fraction of my whole Bitcoin. $106 ,000 US dollars on Monday the 10th of November. Oh, you're well away from the top there. Well, not the absolute top, but if you look at the graphics. $126 ,000 something was the US dollar top. Yes, but it was the bump up. So if you look at it, go down there, bump up. Oh, I'll buy that down from there.

42:28I'm almost disappointed. I thought you were down much more. that. What I do love though, and this is the two top stories, actually the three top stories is fascinating, right? And this is, the algorithm does the algorithm of things, but it's not deliberate. So when I did a Google search for it, the first was Michael Saylor predicts Bitcoin price could reach $21 million. The next one is Bitcoin price plunges towards$85 ,000 as traders brace for a big week. And the third one is Bitcoin sell-off, the correlation between crypto assets and equities. And that kind of recapitulates the entire Bitcoin conversation, right?

43:00I know among the hardcore is other stuff, but that's, at a general level, that's the entire story is like, hey, it's going to the moon. Oh, it plunged. Well, maybe it's just like stocks. And that kind of feels to me like a very, very nice three-article summary of the popular view of Bitcoin at the moment. I mean, it's exactly that. And this is why it's worth broadening this out because I know there's a lot of listeners who couldn't give a stuff about this, and that's fine. But it's still the same. I made a mention the other week with Commonwealth Bank. It had$192 is the 52-week high. and then in the very space of a few months you're up to$140.

43:34Now, if I got up there on the ABC News and said it's a scam, it's a Ponzi, I'm like, well, dude, that's just volatility. It's stocks. What are you worried about? It's the same kind of thing, right? And it's like if you were trading it, you've lost money. But if the thesis is untouched, you know, I don't, there's nothing that's changed. You and I will remember this because we were around at the time and many of our listeners will. I remember distinctly because I'd just graduated from uni with a degree in microbiology of all things, which I've never used. Somehow I found myself working at a broking firm and everyone was talking about the internet.

44:11In my head I want that. I know you've told me what it is. If you've told the listeners it doesn't matter. But in my head I want that to be the Wolf of Wall Street. I want you to be in this boiler room kind of bashing away. I know it's not the case. It wasn't nearly as fun as what the movie made it out to be. But, like, the excitement, the hype was real. Oh, yeah. And here's the thing. It was true. Yep. Yes, yes, yes. With our vantage point in 2025, it was like, duh. You were all right. Yeah, exactly. This was before even smartphones, right? And it's like, you know, the biggest company on the planet, I think, was Microsoft at that point in time.

44:50Now, a few years later, the whole thing had collapsed. 99.9 % of all internet companies went to zero and never recovered. Even the big ones got wiped, like really just crushed and took 10 years to come back. But it was true. And if you had bought Microsoft at that point in time, you made an absolute fortune. Now, how much doubt and FUD, you know, did you have to experience along the way there? And this is why I'm very fond of saying this because I've already had it happen. You know, you got lucky. You got lucky. It's like that does not sound like luck to me to endure, to say resolute on a high conviction on a view of the future when everyone in the world is calling you an idiot, when the price is falling and crashing down.

45:36It's hard, you know, and it's sort of like if it was easy, we'd all do it. And so I guess we won't talk about this for too much longer. Other than to say, and again, whether this is Bitcoin or it's a tech stock or it's an investment property or anything like that, know what you own and why you own it. Why are you buying this thing? Has anything changed? Does it still represent value? If the answer to all of that is yes, then just ignore all of this stuff. And unfortunately or fortunately, well, actually I said to you off air, one of the good things about Bitcoin is I don't have to worry if the CEO has committed fraud or if earnings were missed.

46:12It's sort of like, well, nothing's changed. So why would I change my view on that? In fact, if you're at a point in life where you're looking to continue to, if you're looking to stack, this is a gift from heaven. And I can tell you, shut up, I promise you after this, the best investments I have made in the world. Yep. One of them is actually Bitcoin. It dropped 50 % after I first bought it. It was 50K, I think, with first purchase. Aussie dollars dropped down to 25K. Well done. That sucked. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well done, but, yeah, it sucked, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sucked. You know, I bought Catapult.

46:48I bought it a bunch of times. I watched that thing drop 50 % a whole host of times. Stealth Group, a recent investment, relatively recent investment, did really great. First purchased that at$0.12. You know, a month later it was at$0.08, 25%. This is the par for the course on all of the best investments. And if you're going to be the kind of person who freaks out because of a price drop, you're just not going to make it. Now, very quickly need to add, if you freak out because something has fundamentally changed with the investment thesis. That is very appropriate and you should freak out and you should be decisive and quick in your actions.

47:22So if you told me today that something has gone horribly wrong with the network and I still, for some reason, had an opportunity to sell it to someone else, I would in a heartbeat. But if nothing's changed, then I'm not going to change. And that's true of all investments. Yep, 100%. 100%. VC has a little spleen to vent. Can I also take this time to point out how ever since currencies like the US dollar and even the Australian dollar were taking off the gold standard. Money looks more and more like monopoly paper. Lo and behold, the bank keeps giving out more and more to their buddies under the table.

47:54In real life, they aren't even trying to hide it. Sure, a currency pegged to the gold standard wasn't stable money, but it was a darn sight better than what it is today. Hence my lamenting feelings that I don't have more free monopoly monies to put towards my sat stack, which I know you all appreciate. Dude, I often say I am absolutely sure I will be having a conversation with my future grandchildren at a point in time. And they'll be like, granddad, what? Are you telling me that commercial banks just created money out of thin air? Like, yes, they did. And wait a sec, were there a council of 12 elders that would convene in their glass fortress once every six weeks and decide the price of money for the entire country?

48:35Yes, they did. That sounds like absolute pure madness. Like it's a fevered dream of a madman. Like how did anyone think this was a good idea? It's going to, we're going to look back on this in the same way that we look back on bloodletting. Like what? That was the recommended medical practice to like bleed someone, you know? And, you know, anyway, that's my view. Time will tell, but it's just like, I think as an, this is just a general comment about investing. I think you need to be an independent thinker. Like it doesn't mean you're going to be right because you're in a lot of independent thoughts out there that are completely bonkers.

49:11So it's necessary. what's the term for it? Sufficient but not. Necessary but not sufficient. Sorry, yeah. Necessary but not sufficient. So if you're going to be someone who just runs with all of the other lemmings, you're probably not going to do too well. If you're someone who goes, you're a complete contrarian on every mainstream established thought, you're probably also not going to do well. But what you must do, you must be able to reach your own conclusions and stick to them as long as the facts and the reasoning stand up. Again, houses, you know, equities, magic internet beans, you name it, it's always true.

49:46So don't, and in this space in particular, there's so much guff and noise and just nonsense. It makes it particularly hard. So just be careful out there. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. We have a couple of Bitcoin questions coming, mate. I'm going to ask them, and I'm mindful that we've been a lot of time on Bitcoin in the past few weeks. Yeah, that's my fault. I'm sorry. No, it's my fault. What I like is that... It is a mind virus though, so it's good to know it's not just me. To some degree, but what I like about it, and I think with, and we will do, at some point this year or early next, we'll do a Sound Money episode.

50:23You and I talk about this off air and it's kind of... Yeah. What I like about the Bitcoin, whether you buy Bitcoin or not, it's kind of, I won't say it's irrelevant because if it goes up a lot, it matters whether you bought some or not. If it crashes, then it also matters. But what I like about the questions is the way our listeners are thinking through the implications of the topics. And I hope that if we can kind of keep the Bitcoin proselytizing down a little bit but help answer some of these questions, I think it's actually a useful framework for thinking about the way the economy works. You made the point lots of times about just the role of money and how money works, the things we take for grand don't ask.

50:53Even if you don't end up with Bitcoin, thinking about this stuff kind of matters. Dude, I almost made it to the age of 50 working in finance. Right, exactly. Dollars were my stock and trade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never knew what money was. I'm embarrassed to admit it. I was just sort of like, you know? So, yeah. So Luke says, good morning slash afternoon, Lord Page Rammer and King Philly Scott. Feel free to mention my name. We already did. Thanks, Luke. I'm a long-time listener of The Pod Machine, but a first-time questioner. Thank you for the hours of entertainment education each week. Your passion keeps me company during workouts and makes me feel like I'm channeling the ultra-fit super straw man.

51:30Yes, he's a marathon runner. I don't make him anymore. I'm a 25-year-old investor. He says, insert bugger you here. I wouldn't do that, Luke. I'd just call you a bastard. You know that. With a long-term horizon, my focus is on allocating income to diversified growth stocks and index tracking ETFs with the goal of gaining more financial independence later in life. I'm going to read that sentence again because, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about the individual bits and pieces of investing. But kind of the why, we've all got our own whys, but just think about it. My focus is on allocating income to diversified growth stocks and index tracking ETFs with the goal of gaining more independent, more financial independence later in life.

52:11I just think that's really great. Luke, as I understand. That enables freedom, right? That's what it's about. Choice. Control over your own time is the most wealthy you can be if you've got that. Mate, your favourite, one of my favourite lines of yours is never having to set an alarm. Right. As you've said, when you have a set alarm, that's when you've made it. It's like that's – it's not even more complex than that. If you have all the toys in the world, a set alarm, I'm not sure you've made it. I mean, you could have made it. You've just chosen different things. But, yeah, not having a set alarm.

52:41I love it. Yep. Luke says, I understand or have convinced myself I understand many of the arguments for Bitcoin's potential as a superior currency or monetary system. But here's my hurdle. My money is split into two buckets. Spending money, which practically has to be in Australian dollars, and long-term savings, which is currently in stocks and ETFs. My questions are, one, it's what I mean about the thinking that Alice is doing, mate. If Bitcoin's long-term case is purely as a currency, what's the motivation to allocate surplus cash flow to it now rather than allocating that cash flow to stocks and ETFs?

53:17Yeah. Is the only real investment thesis that it becomes a widely adopted digital store of value like gold, or is there a deeper justification to buy and hold that I'm missing? Yeah. That's my dog's turn. Are you talking about Bitcoin? Someone stop him. I'll stop.

53:39So there's what it, forget about Bitcoin, as you say. There's what it might look like as an end state under a sound money global system, however that is instantiated, and there is the path to get there. Yes. So if we clicked our fingers and that's just the money that the world used, there is no, you are far better off continuing to invest in productive enterprise because you will get outsized returns. Now, what's different, and it's very difficult for us to understand under our fiat regime where we engineer and desire to erode our purchasing power by between two and 3 % each year. But if you think about a sound money, which is basically means you can't change the money supply.

54:23Actually, what would happen is even at the end state, you would still increase your purchasing power by whatever productivity gains humanity managed to unlock, which is a thing of beauty. Historically, somewhere between 2 % or 3%, something like that. So you would still have benefit in doing it. And that's a risk-free return as well, which would be really great. But we're just at a really, really unique point in time. As I say, we're like, you blink. It It didn't exist that long ago. Now it exists, right? And it depends on what stats. No one really knows because this is what happens with a permissionless open network.

54:57We don't really know exactly how many people have opted in. And if we are going to start counting up wallet addresses and things like that, are we counting off the, you know, the punter who's just put$10 in on Coinbase and doesn't really know or, you know, the hardcore who's got 90 % of their wealth stored in it? And that person who splits their one wallet into 10 different parts with less money in each, There's more wallets, but there's not really more people, more money. It's just a spread of the asset. So I've heard estimates. I mean, people have done surveys and all kinds of things and clever chain analysis work.

55:27And the estimates are sort of somewhere between 40, I think, and 150 million people. Australia's population is 25 million people. Let's put that out there, right? Interestingly enough, I was looking at Vietnam the other day. There's 100 million people in Vietnam, and 40 % of them are between the age of 13 and 45. and they have one of the highest penetrations of Bitcoin in the world. It's like we've really got, this is what's weird because when we're talking about ASX listed whatever, it's got a very small addressable market for those stocks, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that, you know, international money managers can do it.

56:02But, you know, if you're talking about something outside of the ASX 300, it's a very small market. This is a market literally, the total addressable market is 8 billion people and growing, right? So very, very, very, oh, I'm speaking up, both sides of my mouth. On one hand, more people own it and own it seriously than there are people in Australia. It's already the 10th largest currency in the world, which is always a stat that floors people. And that's just converting every dollar to the US dollar and looking at the total amount in existence. And it's ahead of 160 other odd currencies out there in the world.

56:33But apparently it's still a scam according to the ABC. Anyway. Back to the question. But as that continues to grow, well, assuming it continues to grow, well, the number of units in existence can't change. It's kind of the whole point or one of the points, right? So it's sort of like if it's going to be a currency for the world, it has to be worth a lot more than$2 trillion as market cap. It probably needs to be more than$100 trillion, right? And so that's why it's so interesting at this point in time is as we go along that S-curve of adoption and we go from 4 % or 5 % of global population to 80 % of global population using it in some way, shape or form, I mean, the only thing that's left to give is the price.

57:21And in fact, the price actually becomes in itself meaningless at some point because I'm not actually exchanging it for one particular fiat currency. I'm just using it as money. So it's a real head fake. You know, it's going to screw with your brain. But it's just, it's outsized returns now because of where we are on the S-curve. The person who bought it in 2013, just to pick a random date, put in$100 and they're now worth whatever, I mean$100 million. Those days are gone, right? Like, that's not going to happen. And I'm a big bull, as everyone knows, right? That rate of growth cannot be sustained.

57:56More of a lot of us, yep. Yeah, Michael Saylor himself, big, obviously, advocate for it. in corporate America? And he's saying, yeah, it's going to be diminishing returns. I mean, I've used the term S-curve. It's hard to do in auditory format, but it's like shapes like an S, very, very slow, exponentially rises and then exponentially plateaus off at the other end because trees can't grow to the sky. Where at the bottom of that S-curve? And if, and this is the question, right, you know me, mate, I'm just very big on asymmetric returns. So there's no guarantee that it works. It could fail. And if it fails, you're going to potentially lose all your money.

58:33If it doesn't fail, you're probably looking at something that's a 10 to 100x return over the next several decades. It seems like a... It's why I always say it's like, you know, I'm not advocating for anyone to back up the truck and put their life savings into it. But if you don't have 1 % of your investable funds in it at this point in time, you're missing a trick to my way of thinking. Anyway, that's my view. Yeah, I'm going to say what you just said differently and maybe just wasting everyone's time. But effectively, Luke, there's an adoption. You can probably say it more concisely than I managed to do it.

59:02Well, there's an adoption phase and there's a maturity phase. Yes. So think about it like this. And this is not even – there's no good analogy because to Ram's point, there is a finite amount known now. Even though it's not all mined yet, there's a finite amount of Bitcoin. And it's not – 95 % of it is, right? Yes. The rest is going to trickle out over the next 120 years. Right. And there's a finite amount of gold, but we find it at a liberated different rate. So there's no easy analogy here. The simplest one to your maturity point, Luke, is even though they're printing Australian dollars and US dollars, don't at me with the actual monetary base rate growth, Andrew, but let's assume they're both inflating at similar rates, right?

59:46That's why over time the US dollar and the Australian dollar don't diverge enormously and permanently in a single direction because they're exchanging one. They're mature, right? They're debasing at the same rate. Right. You can buy US dollars with Australian dollars, buy Australian dollars with US dollars, but the number of people who want it have kind of got them already in both cases. And yes, that'll change a little bit. Some will change that one for the other, but kind of that's the maturity phase you're talking about, Luke. And there's no good example, but I'll contrast it with the volume, not the price of oil in the 20th century.

1:00:14Yeah. We went from no oil at the beginning of the 20th century to millions of barrels a day by the end of it, okay? And that growth, there was no price for oil because it didn't exist in usable form in 1900. A hundred years later, it's powering the world economy. You can buy a 44-gallon drum for 50 bucks or whatever it is. Wow. So that's – and you can produce more oil, drill more oil. It's nowhere near a perfect analogy at all. My point is that during the adoption phase, had there been no more oil discovered but lots of uses for it, you would have seen the price skyrocket. Okay? Why? For the reason that Rams talked about.

1:00:53People find utility, the horrible economics word just means there's some value in it, in its use normally, in its ability to be used. And so they want it. And they want it in larger numbers while it makes sense. And at some point you go, huh, I've got as many US dollars as I want. Back to the currency version, that's with maturity. I've got as many US dollars as I want. I can buy as many as I want now. So for me personally, I have as many US dollars as I want. That's about 50 bucks in cash in my bedside drawer because I had it in my wallet when I got back from overseas. I need to buy more US dollars.

1:01:22Why? Because I don't have a need for them and we're at a level of maturity. It's a gift certificate you can only use in the American shopping mall. And I've got as many Australian dollars as I want for exactly the same reasons. And that's at maturity. So my view, Luke, I don't have anywhere near the conviction of RAM on Bitcoin as everyone knows. but the motivation to allocate surplus cash flow to it now to directly your question is that bitcoin's value will rise when more people want the same limited amount of demand think i've talked about population housing a million times right nine people 10 houses prices go through the floor 11 people 10 houses prices go through the roof there's 21 million bitcoin not all available but effectively as ramps is 95 of it's available the number of people if more people want it what What else can happen but the price go up?

1:02:08Until the number of people who want it have it or can afford it and change their labour for it but put that aside. That's the maturity phase. Everyone's now using Bitcoin. Like everyone's saying, will people use more Australian dollars in the future? A bit more. But, you know, we've got as many as we want. It's all working and there's no adoption. We're making about 6 % to 7 % more every year. Right, exactly. Not as bad. Yeah, right. But that's the idea. So if, Luke, to your question, if demand for Bitcoin itself increases between now and maturity, the price will go up. And at that point, when the demand and supply plateau, whenever it has the Bitcoin they want or can afford, again, in that kind of same context, it will plateau.

1:02:48And so that's the answer. At some point, Bitcoin becomes like money. We would say better. I would agree if it does happen, which is it's not going to be debased. But effectively, it's money, right? If they stop printing more Australian dollars today, Bitcoin and maturity and Australian dollars are identical. in, again, different uses and blah, blah, blah. But for all intents and purposes, from a valuation perspective, they're the same. If I said to you, actually, in future, everyone will use super dollars in Australia rather than normal dollars. And I've got 20 million super dollars over here.

1:03:19Do you want to buy some? Yeah, if they go from worth, well, no, I'm going to buy super dollars. That's a stupid idea. All of a sudden you go, huh, turns out everyone's using super dollars. Yeah, I might get some of those, please, Scott. I say, well, see, you want to, but turns out I've sold them all already. Other people have got them. If you want to get them off them, you have to pay more for it. you go, bugger, and at some point they reach a plateau. Long answer, Ram's already covered it. During adoption, if it happens, the price of Bitcoin should grow much more quickly than, well, dollars by definition.

1:03:47But the demand for it will go up, the price will go up. When it hits maturity, when everyone's got, when it's stable, stable state, if you like, the pricing quotes will plateau. As Ram said, at some point, maybe just, you know, talk about dollars, but either way, at that point, That is Bitcoin will operate like money only with no additional, what's the right word? Conversions. Yeah, but I'm talking about the accretion of value doesn't happen once you hit steady state. And so think about two stages, Luke. And if RAM's right, the adoption phase will see the price skyrocket and when it's finished, when everyone's got as many as they're going to have, then it just becomes a steady state.

1:04:25And at that point, personally me, I have a very small number of Bitcoin. RAM's got a few. I think you've said, I don't put words in your mouth. I'll ask you the question instead. When you are convinced that the adoption curve has completely plateaued, I would suspect you would invest some Bitcoin in shares or other productive assets rather than own Bitcoin. Oh, the majority of my wealth, yeah, for sure. For exactly those reasons because at that point, the value of the asset should grow faster in purchasing power terms than Bitcoin. That's all you want to do. You want to maximise your purchasing power growth.

1:04:56That's all any of us doing at any point. And me, I have a very small number of Bitcoin, as I said, but largely my purchasing power growth is through shares. Now, if Bitcoin is going to grow faster than the shares, then I should go with Bitcoin. And when it stops growing faster than the shares, I should go with shares again. And that would be the journey, I think, that you're suggesting around and that I would echo completely. Well, the shares are a great analogy. I mean, why are Apple shares worth so much? Because they're scarce. Yes, correct. There's only one Apple in the world, right? No, not the fruit, the company.

1:05:23Exactly. There's only one company that makes iPhones, right? And that's why it's worth so much. There's only one company in the world that makes really great chips that are good for AI. There's only one company in the world that's effectively the gateway to the internet, which is Alphabet and Google. Like that's why they're worth the same thing. Where it gets really just insane and just hard to wrap your head around, this is, they say there's nothing new under the sun, but every now and again there is. This is the first time in human history where we've actually engineered perfect mathematical scarcity.

1:05:58So it is, let's look at gold. Let's say the price, gold's gone up a lot lately, right? So let's say it goes up more, let's say 10Xs tomorrow. There will be a supply side response. All of a sudden, every single gold miner will ramp up their production massively. And don't forget it, most gold miners have tenements out there that are just not viable. there. It's just like, it costs us $5 ,000 to get an ounce out of the ground, so why would I do it if I can only sell it for$4 ,000? Those dynamics change radically at a higher price. So generally, when you're talking about commodities, not generally, literally every single time when you're talking about commodities, when the price goes up, it induces a supply-side response.

1:06:40Gold detectors go through, metal detectors go through the roof. Whenever the gold price goes up, go down to sell the gold metal detectors, because we're like, hang on, I can go and spend some time doing this. It's worth my while at scale, particularly in Africa. That goes bananas. Well, you mentioned oil. Yep. What has happened with the use of oil? Oil's gone through. We're using more oil now than we have ever used, not like a little bit more than 50 years ago, like orders of magnitude more, and yet it's kind of in inflation-adjusted terms never been cheaper, and that's because there's a supply-side response.

1:07:07So this is what's interesting. I mean, you know, there's 50 million people in the world who are worth more than a million US dollars. So not every millionaire can even hold one. Right. And then there's about 4 million that have been lost. Anyway, I won't keep hammering the point. That is why. And if you don't think adoption's going up for whatever reason, then don't buy it. But if you do think it's going up, then, you know, there's only one thing to correct because nothing else can change. One more Bitcoin question to finish off, Ram. And I'm going to ask you to keep level-headed. It's not a complaint.

1:07:39You know I can't. I can't promise that. I may have to intervene. Em, and my latest charge photos attached. attached. This is on an audio format. There is a very, very, very, very cute puppy dog. That's all I'm going to say to you. So, Em, well done. I've got a little guide dogs thing. So maybe you're training guide dogs, which if you are, that is brilliant, Em, so thank you. Hi, Scott and Ram. Firstly, I'm female and older than you both, so I must be likable. You're absolutely right, Em. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. As long as I can't be envious. And I appreciate female listeners around what I both do and female investors.

1:08:11Thank you for listening. Thank you for sending in the photos. They're very cute. I'll send them to you separately around and you'll be able to see this very, very cute puppy dog. Little golden retriever, I think. Very cute. Secondly, I love the pod machine, says Em. You have both been very informative over many years now. I listen to your words of wisdom while I volunteer. Here you go. While I volunteer raise guide dog puppies. Very cool. I couldn't do it. Em says, yes, I am sending them back with tears in my eyes just as they are growing up. And then I get another one and do it all again. Please keep up the puppy stories because it always gives me a chuckle.

1:08:42Ram's dog barking in the background wasn't deliberate, Em, but it was nice and come in beautifully handy. I couldn't do that. Could you do that? I couldn't raise a puppy and then send it off. It'd be hard, wouldn't it? But I'm glad you do it. Thirdly, thank you for making broad-based ETF investing seem like a really good choice for me rather than something only the ignorant would do. I love the idea of researching companies, but honestly, playing with puppies and training them is more appealing. Smiley emoji. I don't blame you about that either. Now to my question or discussion. It's Bitcoin, but not really.

1:09:11I understand the problems with fiat currency, says Em. There are enough examples across the world as to why it's not great. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a hard money system and not prone to the same problems. Very appealing. What I don't understand is, if it was to be adopted worldwide, what is to stop us becoming a feudal system again, where those who have everything can own those who have none? Bitcoin, you say, can be divided more and more, unlike, say, land that a landlord won't part with or, to a lesser extent, gold. But how is creating smaller pieces of pie different to creating more pieces of the pie by growing it as we do with fiat currency.

1:09:49I'm sure there's a simple explanation, but I just can't see it. Cheers, M, and my latest charge, photos attached, which I was just talking about. Well, there's two questions there. Go on. I'll do the second one first because it's super easy to do. Something that is infinitely divisible is not infinite in quantity. And a very easy way to explain this is to say, if that were true, I could order a pizza from Domino's and feed the world. I'll just divide it into 8 billion slices and we all get pizza. There is only one pizza, right? So that is something that I really - Technically, infinitely divisible, just not very useful.

1:10:27Yeah. I mean, but it's exactly the same thing, right? It is different if I multiply the number of pizzas. If I make 8 billion pizzas, now everyone has a whole pizza and, you know, and it kind of diminishes the value of the pizza in a lot of ways because it's sort of, there's no scarcity to it. So what you want... It's kind of a break down. We do want to feed people, but I understand the broad point. I'll say we shouldn't. There's value in feeding 8 billion people, but the analogy kind of breaks down at that point. I mean, people have, I've mentioned it before, that some Bitcoin have been lost and sometimes people get worried about that.

1:11:00It's like, oh, what happens when it's all gone? You could run the entire global economy on one Bitcoin. Yeah. Easy. Yep. You know, it doesn't matter. It will adapt to the level it needs to do. Whether it's 21 million, why did Satoshi decide 21 million? I don't know. There is some mathematics in terms of the halving schedule that kind of makes it a nice, there's some elegance to it, but it could have been 42 or anything, right, right, as a nod to Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It doesn't matter. What matters is that it's immutable, is that it doesn't change. in the same way is that you can in barrel be one of the best builders on the planet by using the imperial system and I can be a great builder using the metric system.

1:11:47Can I say, just a massive tangent, I've watched a couple of home improvement DIY videos and the guy's been like, oh, that's five and seven sixteenths of an inch and I'm going to make this one over here three. Who uses inches? A fraction of an inch, for God's sake, people. I know the Yanks do their thing, but who wants to add five and seven inches to six and four inches and try and work at how much, like, just move on. It's such a great analogy, really, because when you speak to Americans, they're like, how do you do it? Like, they can't get their head around it. That's true, I suppose. And it's just all Fahrenheit and Celsius.

1:12:17Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Aussie dollars and Bitcoin. It's sort of that there is something very potent and powerful about the status quo in the just that, you know, you and I could be speaking French right now, right? I just, it would be very hard and take a lot of work for us to sort of get there. Oh, there's the puppy dog again. But it doesn't really matter. It's kind of abstract in a way. So hopefully that answers the question. It doesn't matter, right? It just doesn't matter. Doesn't change anything. Doesn't change anything. I could elaborate, but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it there. The other point was, oh, a feudal system.

1:12:54Yeah. You might have to flesh that out for me. Why would a hard money standard inevitably lead to a feudal system? I think one of, I don't know. my interpretation of em's question is one i had myself and you're gonna have debated this a little bit and i think what catches people up is that somehow a new system implemented now i i've i made the argument to you ages ago if you were going to try and get widespread adoption for a new brand new digital currency better than the others the easy way to do it would be swap everyone's assets as they currently exist for their proportional share of global wealth and just replace one for the other.

1:13:30So if I'm Warren Buffett and my wealth is 0.5 % of the – I don't know what the numbers, let's make it up. Half a percent. He gets half a percent of the Bitcoins and my wealth is 0.1, so I get 0.1 of a Bitcoin and around it goes. If you just replace one with the other, it would seem somehow more appropriate because that is the status quo. I suspect – That assumes it was starting from a fair starting point. Right, but I think that's the point, right? So I think the idea and where M is – if I'm misinterpreting, I apologise, misrepresenting you, I apologise. It feels somehow, and maybe this just is the privilege of being wealthy in the first place, and I say wealthy in a global context, not a personal context, is it feels like if you say we should have a brand new currency, but the people who've already got it, they get more of, you know, Michael Saylor is, if we're in with Bitcoin, he's going to be wealthier in Bitcoin than he was in dollars, right, because he owns a larger proportion of the new thing.

1:14:21And so there is a sense from Em's perspective, and I think, Em, you might also be a little bit misled by the final number because it feels like a set number of them. Those who've got a bigger amount of the fixed number feel somehow like it's less fair. But the idea of kind of the distribution of Bitcoin being different to the distribution of fair currencies, plural, is something that kind of, it just feels uncomfortable. It feels like if you're going to create something new, don't do it in such a way that there is inbuilt, what's the right word? You've buckled, you've reasonably objected to the word fair before.

1:14:53but there is a distribution inequality to Bitcoin that if you're going to do something from scratch, you wouldn't choose to do. You wouldn't choose to, you know, if you're a benefic, as much as you like Bitcoin, I know you've said the point about people are early and they saw it and they deserve the wealth and I don't necessarily disagree with that. But also I suspect knowing you, mate, if you started with, you got to say as a benevolent dictator of the world, hey, guys, look, the fake currencies you've got suck. We're going to replace them all and the fairest way to replace them all is either give the same to everybody because that seems the fairest way to do it Or if you're not going to do that, you're going to say at least no one's going to be worse off or better off.

1:15:25We're just going to replace one for one. That's probably the most reasonable way, again, I'll put the word fair at the side, to do it. So we don't lose a win by it. We just replace one with the other. When we went from pounds to dollars in Australia, we kind of went, you've got all your money. The exchange rate is this. Sixpence is now five cents. You've all got sixpence each. How many sixpence you've got? You've got that number of five-cent pieces. Let's get on with it. And no one won or lost. They just transferred. And I suspect, and I still, there is no way around it. I've kind of made my peace with it.

1:15:52If I'm interpreting you correctly. That's the problem. That's the problem. Right. But I think that's where it seems like. It's like we're creating or encouraging or allowing or just accepting a system that would in its adoption have inbuilt inequality in a way that feels like the early and the rich get most of the Bitcoin where we, in a perfect world, would have an alternative option, I suppose. And if I missed it, I can't ask you, Em, because you're not here live. I hope I'm doing that justice. but it feels like, you know, imagine with land, right? We've all decided to create a privately owned land and you're going to get this much and you're going to get that much.

1:16:26Hang on, why do I get, you know, just because I had, you know, that early I was using that land and you said, okay, you can have it now. Squatters Rights in Australia is a great example, by the way. And they changed the small, what do they call it, the small something act to basically say to the, you can't have this massive amounts of land, we're going to make you give some of that land back and redistribute it more fairly in the 1800s in New South Wales, from memory. My Australian history is failing me. there was a not a reckoning but a redistribution at some point of like okay you got there first you got this massive track to land everyone else is missing out that's not fair we're going to make it less unfair I can understand how someone coming to Bitcoin is like but hang on this new system means that those have already got lots of them get to keep them and they kind of get to be richer than the rest of us and from a purely investment perspective in a justifiable way but at a social level you wouldn't ever design it this way you wouldn't say brand new money whoever gets there first gets most of it bad luck if you went there early You know, but again, to your point, is there another option?

1:17:18I mean, there is, but realistically. I don't know how you do it. I get the point. I get the point. I suspect that's what she meant. What would you do? Right, exactly. Let's say that I decide to emigrate to the US. Yep. And I arrive in the US and I go, wait a second, there's 330 million people here and they've all got land. I don't have any land. US dollars and, yeah, exactly. I will, I'm one 330 millionth of the population now. I should get that much land. someone give me your land. Like, I don't think anyone would go, yeah, that's perfectly reasonable. Yeah. You know? And whether it's land or whether it's Apple shares or whether it's, I mean.

1:17:58But if a government also, your own set right, I'm just, I'm just a devil's advocate or just the other side, which is it also would be true if those 330 million people, the government said, so what we've decided to do is replace US dollars with US megabucks or Trump, let's call them Trump bucks for fun. And what I decided to do is - You don't even have to imagine this because most countries around the world do reset their currency every 20 to 30 years. That is the standard. We're at the tail end of fiat currencies, which don't do that. Well, let's say Trump said, okay, so Trump bucks, we're going to get rid of US dollars all together tomorrow, right?

1:18:29And what's going to happen is I'm going to give 10 times as many Trump bucks to people who donated my campaign and five times as many to people who voted Republican and everyone else can share what's left. You'll be like, well, that's not fair. And that's kind of how people are seeing, rightly, but also, as you say, probably unavoidably, the rise of Bitcoin, which is at some point if we do adopt Bitcoin as a global currency, which is your expectation, we get to a point where the distribution of that is unideal. I'm not going to say fair. It's none of those things. They'll have massive amounts of value attached.

1:19:04I don't mean to do that. I'm not saying you do anything differently, but I also get the - But that is the world where I'm not going to put a value judgment on it because it's just, that is, I mean, forget Bitcoin. It's true of every asset and thing of value on the face of planet Earth. It is not distributed equally. So it's an unfair comparison. I'm not saying you or Emma are making this, but it is an unfair comparison to say there's some platonic ideal out here in which nothing else in reality has ever conformed to, but you should and this should conform to it. It's kind of, it's a double standard in a way.

1:19:38The other thing is just to look at the history of money and money has always been an emergent property that just is. And this is what's... Yeah, correct. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to use this term. It's why the emergence of Bitcoin is so beautiful and fair. This is why I'm so much against all the altcoins and all this crypto. When you look at almost all of them, they have all got a VC backer who have restricted a certain amount of coins to themselves, who have gone out there and pumped it on social media so that they can dump it on some poor sucker and walk away and walk away with a thing that actually has some value, which is the US dollars that they're trying to get.

1:20:20Here's something I created for free. Me and Scott have got Motley Fool Money Coin. We're creating it. We're doing a launch. We're launching a crypto token. And by the way, we use some zero-knowledge proof system which makes sure that we mask the identity of it So it's got far better privacy assurances and, you know, people in the know will know what I'm talking about because there's plenty of cryptos out there that make these kinds of things. And then you would look at that and go, well, wait, so you guys get like right out of the gate, you get some? Like that's every other crypto right now, right?

1:20:52This thing was like the person who created it walked away without ever cashing in a single one. They stood it up and they gifted it to the world and they said anyone in the world can use it. And right now, for anyone who's complaining about it's unfair, it's like I will just remind you that 95 % plus of the world does not have any. So you can complain or you can front run the vast, vast, vast majority of the people. And here's the other point I always... I don't know too far. I hear you, but that's the problem you should identify rather than the solution. You can be one of the feudal lords. That doesn't mean there's no feudalism in that analogy that M is or the metaphor M is raising.

1:21:31I'm just saying, look, I actually, well, I'll get to the other point. I'm just saying if it's something that you're worried about, then you can do something about it. You can't do nothing. I can't go, oh, I never invested in Apple. Apple's now worth$300 trillion, whatever it is, and I should have some. And all the people who took the risk, they didn't know it was going to be the company it was going to be. You know, and it's sort of like, yeah, to the spoil, to those who sacrificed, go the spoils. Anyway, that's a separate point. I also reject the idea that it leads to any kind of feudalism because think about what we, if you're angry at this as a potential, your blood should be boiling at the current system that we have.

1:22:14That's the key. I agree. That's the key. I'm not saying this is some beautiful utopia and there'll never be a hungry child or disease in the world. Humans will be, human will be all kinds of wars and horrible things that happen. But at the moment, we live in a system where if you happen to have a special license from the government, you can create money out of thin air. We live in a system right now that if you happen to be one of these institutions and you are completely reckless with that power and blow yourself up, we will bail you out and we will socialise those losses and spread it amongst everyone else.

1:22:49We live in a system right now that the more money you have, the easier it is for you to get more money. In a sound money system, that's not true. If I buy 100 Bitcoin today and then I go into a coma for 50 years and I wake up and it's the global reserve currency and I sit on my hardware wallet, I've actually, all I've done, I've done nothing, right? I've actually put no claim on the things that genuinely matter in this world, which are the tangible, like the land, the goods, the services that I can buy. These are the things that have value. So money of all descriptions, whether it's a bale of tobacco or it's the Australian dollar or it's Bitcoin, this is just a ledger that help us keep track of things.

1:23:29It's an accounting tool. It's all it is. So if I sit there in the future with my 100 Bitcoin and I don't spend it, it's like you can call me a feudal lord, but I've actually not done anything. In fact, the only way to realise the value of this thing is to trade it. I'll buy that mansion off someone and I'll give them some Bitcoin. And guess what? When you do a trade like that, both parties walk away happier. Someone's got the Bitcoin that they wanted. They can now preserve their economic energy for a future use and time when they want to redeem it, and I get to have a house. And so this redistribution, this is why it's good when we have all these people from the early days selling and buying it to new people.

1:24:06And I will no doubt sell down some in the future or spend it more appropriately posited in the future. Wash your mouth, Mr Page. Sell Bitcoin. And that's how you go. That's how you go from one person's hard computer churning away mining and generating 50 Bitcoin per block to something in which everyone in the world can use it because you must spend it to get any value from it. And the moment you spend it, you actually distribute it to someone else. And the final point, I can make 50 other points, but I'll shut up. I think this will be the final point I make is let's say I am the 799th million, 799th person to adopt, right?

1:24:47I'm the last person on planet Earth and I go, right. I give it. By the way, this one. I'm trying to the jungles of Borneo. I'm going to use Bitcoin. And for some reason I've got a wheelbarrow full of like greenbacks that no one wants anymore and I go, oh, I guess I'll adopt it. Now, I'm still massively incentivised to do that because I'm now going to go to a currency in which no one wants or accepts anymore and even if there was some institution keeping it alive, where they're doing what they've always done with fiat money, just completely printed out of thin air and dilute everyone's, to a system which is completely fair and transparent and unscrewable in which no one, whether you're Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Warren Buffett, no one can absolutely screw with it.

1:25:31And you will get, as I said before, perfect assurance that your economic energy is preserved perfectly and that now you're in a network of 8 billion people. So the utility has just gone through. Now the utility is not as good as it will be, right, because only, you know, 3 % of the world actually value it. So now I've got that. And all of humanity's combined collective entrepreneurial spirit and inventiveness now accrues to the money. So I'm just going to sit there with my 100 satoshis, which is a millionth of a Bitcoin, and I will capture all of those productivity gains. Why would I do it? The best analogy to give here, it's really hard for us to imagine.

1:26:20We have just 20 million, 25 million of us, we're nervous. Australians are a rounding error. I don't say that in a mean way. We just are. Zoom out, right? And then look at the greater context. You're in Venezuela. Is it Bolivia? Oh, what's the currency they've got there? I forget, whatever it is. I think in Bolivar. Boulevard. What does everyone do in Venezuela? They switch to the US dollar, right? Now, when they switch, do they go, I'm just going to wait for the currency to depreciate a little bit and then I'm going to sell my US dollars back into the boulevard. No, it's a one-way door. You opt out and you never opt back in.

1:27:01And no one in Venezuela goes, oh, I should have done it 10 years ago. Oh, well, it's too late. I'm not going to do it. like, hell yeah, I'm in a sinking ship here. It's leaking. This is a terrible thing. The government constantly confiscates it and devalues it. I will, the best time to switch is as soon as you possibly can. That is when you switch. And that will be true of Bitcoin. And frankly, it realigns the incentive mechanisms. It doesn't give people of wealth increased power, which was what you have at the moment. It's such an ethic. Like, honestly, my North Star here isn't, I want to pump my bags and be mega rich so I can buy a Ferrari and never work again.

1:27:42It's just like sound money will bring, will usher in a far more egalitarian, fairer world for all. And I don't get how people like, and I just get a bit angry because I read it only this morning, of this ABC article calling it just a tool for criminals. How can you be against a money for the people that is incorruptible, that anyone can voluntarily opt into if they want, without coercion or without force. And like, you're against that? Like, that's just like the weirdest thing in the world, right? And it's like, and if you are going to be, and again, as I say, if you are going to be worried for whatever reason in your head, you think it's grossly unfair, well, buy some, get ahead of the queue or shut up.

1:28:31Not to you, Em, and not to you, Scott, I just, to other people who like to do this because it's just, I just don't know how else you'd do it. I just don't know how else you'd do it. So, Em, I think I sympathise entirely with your view from some sort of social fairness perspective. As I said, if there's a benevolent dictatorship, you wouldn't choose to say, you know, I will hand out Bitcoins unequally. I know we're handing them out, Ram, but work with you here for a second. But in the same way. We've also got to split up all the land at the same time and all the shares to all the companies. In the same way you wouldn't say, okay, I'm going to start tomorrow, Warren Buffett gets more of the greenback dollars than anybody else does.

1:29:09It's no more or less futile in my view, and it might be the breaking up the pieces that has maybe tripped you up a little bit. Bitcoin's far from perfect. It's better as a money. And around his point about fair or fairer, that's the key one, right? So the lack of debasement would be better and fairer. It's less likely. And it's the middle class who wins that one. I've said before, the poor don't have any money to spend, so whether they're saving in dollars or Bitcoin makes no difference. The rich will be slightly worse off because they don't get the benefit of the money printing, and the middle class are meaningfully better off because they're the ones with a bit of cash in the bank that's being debased every year.

1:29:49They would actually get real value for their savings. So that's why I'm not a - And politicians will not be able to spend recklessly without restraint. Right. So I'm not here for the mission per se, but I absolutely think that sound money in whatever form is better. But here's the thing, just my last point. Whether it's Bitcoin or whether it was a sound Australian dollars with no money printing. Now, Bitcoin has some technological differences and I don't want to get caught up in it. But as a concept for sound money, if we just simply said tomorrow, there's no more Bitcoin and no more Australian dollars, all we've got is what we've got.

1:30:20It would be no more or less feudal than Bitcoin. The lords would be different people. The lords currently live on Point Piper and, you know, Turac and Malvern and wherever it is in your Adelaide Hills and where is it in France? How am I getting it? Fremantle. Anyway, wherever the expensive places are in your capital city, right? They're today's lords in Australian dollar terms. It's very likely that if and when Bitcoin was to, frankly, the sooner it happens, the more likely it is that it's meaningful change in those who own because the late adopters won't get as much. If Mike Cannonbrookes keeps his money in Australian dollars and Andrew Page keeps his money in Bitcoin and Bitcoin wins, then Andrew's buying Mike Cannonbrookes' waterfront mansion for half a Bitcoin and he's got 85 Bitcoin by then.

1:31:02And that's how it nets out. And so the lords would change and it would be no more or less futile than it is now is, I guess, my key point, mate. Just looking at the distribution of the two separate types of assets, there would be different people on different parts. If you draw a distribution of who has got how much of what, the proportions would be different and the names would be different, but it wouldn't necessarily be any less unequal. It might or might not be. I don't really know how this nets out to ownership of Bitcoin as it continues to get adopted. I suspect the person who has the most Bitcoin probably ends up with more proportional wealth than the person who has the most dollars today.

1:31:42But I also suspect that broadly, at least early on, it's likely to be a steeper curve for the first 1 % but then flatter thereafter than cash currently is or money currently is. I should say cash actually. Value, land, shares, money, money, whatever. Remembering, of course, by the way, all the other assets, land and shares, just get measured in a different currency at some point. So you don't redistribute the land, you don't redistribute the currency. All you're actually redistributing is the ownership of the money bit. And the money bit's really small. The physical cash component of the two different types the systems is relatively small.

1:32:17So I'm absolutely with you. If I was going to create a brand new money, I would want it to be more equally distributed because that is just a fairer thing to do for society. The reality is, A, it wasn't developed by anyone. It was by Satoshi, but the Bitcoin adoption is not driven by anyone. No one says who should have how much of it. Is it worse, objectively worse, than the distribution of cash, dollars, wealth today? In some countries, yeah, probably, because they probably have less inequality. In other countries, much better. but either way, it's a really great question and if it makes us talk about wealth inequality, that's a really, really good conversation.

1:32:53I don't think it's a Bitcoin conversation any more than it's a dollar conversation, any more than it's a, any other conversation. It's the age-old problem. There's so much stuff. We all want it. How do you split it up? How do you do that? And the other thing is we're not doing it. Like, Bitcoin doesn't create or stop it. It just, as you made the point, but it counts in a different way. It just says, I'm here. Yep. I am here. Yep. If you want, you can adopt me. Yep. In part or in whole. Even just a little bit. It's a very lovely segue. It's back to adopting a guide dog. You can do that. And again, that's why it's so like, how are you against, like, I am not into Beanie Babies, but some people love it.

1:33:32And the final thing I'll just say is just like, just on the criminal kind of thing too. Criminals use the internet. and they use our roads and they use hospitals. It's such a stupid argument, you know, because if we're going to ban anything that criminals use. No, I know, but it's sorry. You're still writing about the AOC article. I was so just ill-informed. I shouldn't complain. This is why it's so cheap. This is 1994 and people going, why would I want the internet? That's where we're at. We will find out in 31 years whether or not this is 1994 internet years. Until then, mate, Thank you for a great conversation.

1:34:09Thank you for the passion. Yeah, thank you, man. Thanks, listeners, for throwing your questions at us. Until next time. Fool on. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under Financial Services License 400691.